The Great Patriotic Mud Offensive - Bread (G) vs Beethoven (S)

[Beethoven1]

This AAR is for a Grand Campaign game I am playing against Bread. Bread seems to be a skilled player who is putting on a good attack with Germany so far, from what I have seen.

For those who are interested in more detail, I have a more detailed AAR on the hex discord server (https://discord.gg/j9AKGZnG). You need to give yourself the grigsby role there to see it. I am posting in more detail there, partly because it is not visible for my opponent, but mostly because it is orders of magnitude easier to post screenshots there. I can just hit print screen in the game and then ctrl + v, and boom, screenshots are instantly in the AAR. Whereas on the forum here I have to use the clunky 1 screenshot-per-post file upload tool, or else mess around with an external image hosting service and then mess around with putting in the html code.

I had been thinking of posting a general overview here in any case, but another reason to post this now is there has also been some discussion in other AARs etc about how powerful (OP?) temporarily motorization seems to be. That has also been my experience in this game. But there are some particular aspects of temporary motorization that I think can make motorization of particular sorts of units even better - especially cheap and low quality units such as NKVD border guards and airborne brigades (though the latter are more valuable later in the game).

In addition, this AAR will also provide another example of a fortress city faring extremely poorly and seemingly not being worth it (at least not in 1941 for the Soviets). Odessa will fall in a single turn, before it was even isolated, despite having 7 divisions in it.

[Beethoven1]

Without further ado, here is turn 1 in the north. Bread did a very strong opening focused seemingly on the north. It looked like he was sending either all or almost all of two full Panzer groups to the north. And what is more, not only did he send those, but he also used the temporary motorization feature to give multiple infantry divisions ~50 MP on turn 1. With the special turn 1 movement rules, those units can move very far, very fast, just like regular motorized divisions, and can allow for a more rapid and more aggressive opening from Germany.

By my count in looking at battle results, there were AT LEAST 3 extra motorized German infantry divisions on turn 1, 2 went to the north, and 1 went to Minsk. There may also have been others that didn't fight in battles that I saw, but which advanced much more quickly than usual due to this, which would allow a stronger push in the next few turns as well, with more infantry already at the front to support the Panzers.

One thing to notice about the German attack is that he largely went for routing my units rather than encircling them, in order to get a rapid advance that would not be too much held up by cleaning up pockets early, especially in the north.

Prior to starting this game, I had read HLYA's AAR against Gunnulf with the Leningrad rush strategy, and this looked a LOT like that to me. Except it appeared to be even more powerful and even more dangerous, due to the additional 3 (or more) temporarily motorized infantry divisions.

So, my response was to basically try to send everything that I could to defend in the north, and whatever I couldn't send to the north, I basically sent to the center. I set up a checkerboard delaying defense in the north for turn 1, and I cut off some of the spearhead with some sacrificial airborne/NKVD troops (not necessary to motorize them for that).





--- ok, now when I try to use the file upload tool here, I am getting an error message and it is not uploading. My screenshot is in .png format:


ASP 500.100 Error

An error occurred processing the page you requested.
Please see the details below for more information.
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File Name /forums/js/PGDUpload.asp
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Script Name /forums/uploadpro.asp?memori=&deletefile=&mode=&messageid=

If this gets fixed, then I will probably re-try uploading later. For now I guess I will just post without screenshots, and if you want to see screenshots just go to discord (there are many more there to look at in any case).


- edit - issue with screenshots circumvented in a way that lets me more easily post multiple screenshots. So here is the north!

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Ya, has to be .jpg format. This system wont take the apple .png file type.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

If you are on a Mac you can easily convert the .png to a .jpg

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: HardLuckYetAgain

Ya, has to be .jpg format. This system wont take the apple .png file type.

Hmm, the uploading tool says "gif/txt/jpg/png/zip are supported," so PNG should be supported. I am on windows, but I was using the screenshots I had previously put to discord, saving to my computer, and then trying to re-upload.

The PNG format is the one automatically generated by print screen functionality in windows, so it is a pain in the ass if you have to reformat all screenshots to upload them (combined with 1 per post limitation and lack of copy/paste ability).

However I think I figured out a way to do this more easily. The screenshots are on discord, and discord gives them a url, so I should be able to paste them in via html. Let's see if this works, if so then that makes it a lot easier.

{image}https://media.discordapp.net/attachment ... nknown.png {/image}

- edit - yes, this works, with the {} changed to [], so I will edit this in to the earlier post and proceed like this.

[Beethoven1]

In the center, Bread made a wide Bialystok pocket, at least ~6 or so hexes wide everywhere, which normally would have been impossible to break. The pocket itself was probably smaller than average also because a lot of units were just routed out of it, which under ordinary conditions ought also to make it harder to break the pocket. It is true that Germany didn't put units spread out everywhere to block me from breaking the pocket that way, but it was wide enough that normally I strongly doubt he would have needed to.

However... a unit of NKVD border guards were lurking in the swamps... Stalin had famously decreed, "A chicken in every pot, and a truck for every NKVD border guard." Accordingly, the NKVD were motorized!

The great thing about motorizing the border guards (and also motorizing paratrooper units and other smaller units), which also makes it especially strong (OP?) is that it requires very little trucks to do so. In fact, the best units to motorize seem to be low strength units, ideally with ~400 men or so which are "unready." Units like this can require as few as 50 trucks or so to motorize, in addition to only costing 1 AP, rather than 2-3 AP and 1000-15000 trucks for a proper motorized division.

The NKVD border guards are especially good for this also because despite the very low cost to motorize them, they have the same zone of control as an ordinary infantry division. As far as I am concerned, NKVD border guards are the best Soviet units in the early turns especially, because they can delay Germany just as much as an infantry unit can. Both units will rout, but the NKVD border guards will take less losses in the process, since they have fewer men. And in addition, the NKVD are much cheaper to motorize. Unfortunately the AI starts disbanding the NKVD pretty soon after a few turns. If it were possible, I would prefer to train more instead

I had also motorized a regular infantry division near Minsk. That unit came within 1 hex of breaking the pocket there as well. If it had done so, then not only would the pocket have been broken, but the German tanks in the center would also have been cut off.



Also note that Minsk could have been liberated, except for the fact that Germany had temporarily motorized an infantry division in order to get it as far as Minsk on turn 1, so it had some of its own temporarily motorized extra units there.

[Beethoven1]

In the south, the Axis opening, fortunately for me, was less frightening than in the north and center. There wasn't really much in the way of a Lvov pocket, but at the same time, they advanced far enough to activate the southern front. So I was able to get most units away in the Lvov area (without using the disbanding exploit). Lvov itself was also open, and I was able to drive two tank units with a total of ~600 tanks into Lvov itself:



I honestly don't know what I would have done if the South opening had been as good as in the north. As far as I know, no units were temporarily motorized by Germany in the south, but if they were, maybe things could have been worse there. Although it is less good for Germany to motorize there than in the north/center, due to lack of the special movement rules.

In any event, since I hadn't lost too much in the south so far, that strengthened my resolve to send all possible reserves to the north, and try to simply hold on in the south with what I had. In fact, I even ended up sending a few troops from the Southwestern front in the swamps railing into the center, to try to help head off the aggressive German opening.

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Thank you for sharing. Yes, there are two ways possible for the German inf to be in Minsk on the first turn. Motorization is one of them. There is another although I have not done the move yet myself.

Motorization in the South for Germany is where this will hurt the Soviets the most. Not necessarily on the first turn. But 48 movement point attacking infantry division can do a great deal of damage too on the first turn. I just don't have the time to show the forums how deadly this can be. Your North & South looks more than fine and I don't see any motorization of inf units there

I could have made a mess of LIAT's Germans in our game but I didn't want to because I feel this is too powerful. Maybe if my two German games are done I will show the forums. But until then I can't.

[Beethoven1]

On Turn 2, in the north, Bread blew through my weak checkerboard screening forces and basically routed everything he touched, like a knife cutting through... well... cutting through bread, I guess? This was not unexpected, but at least it slowed him down a bit.

Unfortunately he also got across the Velikaya river, but that too was not unexpected. After all, the unit defending there had not even gotten off its trains yet, it was railed in from Moscow (normally those units would not even be going to the north, but probably to Smolensk, but I sent basically all possible units to the north that I could, to try to save it).

So on turn 2, I responded by setting up as much defense-in-depth around Pskov as I possibly could.



As you can imagine, this would result in further routs the next turn

An alternative name for this AAR might be "The Great Patriotic Rout."

[DeletedUser1769703214]

Oh! There is more!!! Nice!

[Beethoven1]

Yeah, since I can post screenshots more easily now (figuring out that discord automatically generates image URLs for me), I will keep going with this and maybe be more detailed than I originally intended. I may also start posting the main AAR here, or just copy/pasting from discord to here. It is easier to post first on discord though because of the screenshots, I think.


On turn 2, in the center, I pulled back a bit, but still was defending fairly forward, on the land bridge and with some units still in front of the Dnieper also.





Some of my units here were pretty weak. Unfortunately, as we will see, this would be my undoing on turn 3 in the center. Maybe defending partly in front of the Dnieper was a mistake, and likewise defending on the Berezina in turn 1 (but some units didn't really have enough MP behind it). Or maybe he would have easily broken the Dnieper on turn 2/3 in any case. If so, I wouldn't be surprised, Soviet units are definitely very brittle at this stage of the game, as they should be.

[Beethoven1]

In the center, you can see that some of my units were still alive due to the pocket still being re-opened, and I tried to move them as close to the rail as possible to hopefully disrupt things a bit.



In the south, I pulled back. However, at this point in the game it was my intention to do a fighting retreat (this would change). I thought that I had pulled back enough in the south that Germany couldn't really do much or get to my troops, but I (slightly) underestimated how many MP German tanks can have.



I started pulling back towards Odessa also. I had not yet fully made up my mind as to whether and how much to put in Odessa. I was inclined to put troops there, in part if for no other reason than the fact that you start with the fortress city and don't have to pay AP for it, and just to see/test how it works.

[Beethoven1]

I am going to try just copy/pasting the text I wrote on discord to here, and put in links to the screenshots. Let me know if this format is hard to follow, but this is a very easy way to post updates, since I have already written this, though it does take some extra time copying in the screenshot links. This was written a few turns into the past on discord (currently we are on turn 6). At a certain point soon, I will probably keep the updates here a turn or two or three behind our current point in the game.



I got turn 3 back, and it looks like it was pretty eventful and significant
Soviets lost 284k men (quite a bit). About half of that was from the turn 1 pockets still being cleaned up, about half from fresh combat.

He totally abandoned the push into Estonia that he had been doing the previous turn (he took that port, then apparently just stopped):



The big thing though is this push to Pskov, he just started plowing through my defense-in-depth blob, and despite it being 4-5 layers deep was able to come fairly close to getting through it:



Also, unfortunately, some units got isolated, although not huge #s and not entirely unexpected. He also pushed a bit towards Velikie Luki, but didn't take it (or attack it, probably not enough MP). Probably it is good that I made sure to put at least one unit there.

The other major events were in the center. It looked earlier like he might be pushing towards Gomel, but he stopped (nothing there other than those 2 battles visible at the very bottom) and instead headed north towards Smolensk/Mogilev/Orsha:



And he apparently had enough MP to not only cross the river there, but to re-cross it no the other side (on small river).
At least by Soviet standards, I thought I had that part of the river reasonably well defended. On the north of the 3 hexes where he crossed I had the best tank division that Soviets had in the entire game (combat value of 5 with 400+ tanks and a 98% TOE and good morale). That was on reserve.
And in the other 2 hexes I had infantry divisions which, while presumably not great, were nonetheless classified as "ready"
but this was apparently not much of an obstacle. Center hex battle across the river:



South:



north hex against my glorious 17th Tank Division, which had 456 tanks but nevertheless routed



That battle had almost 4 to 1 odds despite how good that tank division supposedly was, the pride of the Red Army lol
not sure, but maybe he crossed the river first and then attacked that from the side (didn't think there would be enough MP for that, if that is what happened)

In the south, he apparently had enough MP to plow into my blob defense, despite me having pulled back, apparently it was not quite enough to eat up all the MP:



4 were infantry encircled there, though if I had retreated more, I had about that many divisions which didn't have MP to retreat any further (including at least 1 tank division)
One thing I noticed is a lot of my troops seem to have bad supply (soft factor shown here):



Also similar sorts of issues seem to exist in both north and south with supply
hmmmmmm
Less supply seems to have been received by most of my armies than how much they need. Also IIRC I had similar issues on the previous turn with supply:



I hadn't built any depots, because I was thinking that I didn't really need them because I was going to be generally retreating, and of course you don't want to spend AP on depots that then the Germans will capture.
And I had been disbanding depots, though only when I was quite sure they would be captured.
But it is not like I disbanded depots that I had a good chance of keeping the next turn, for example Pskov/Velikie Luki/Vitebsk/Smolensk/Gomel were all not disbanded
I only disbanded Mogilev and Vinnitisia (both of which were in fact captured)
And in the south I didn't disband Zhytomyr/Kiev/Odessa or anything like that
I wonder, am I doing anything wrong with the supply?
Unless you are really supposed to build depots in June '41, the only thing I can really think of that maybe I did "wrong" was that I redeployed my reserves by rail to the Leningrad area and to the center.
Maybe that ate up too much rail capacity or something and supply then could not get through as a result?
But if that is so, then that would basically mean that Soviets don't have enough rail cap to be able to respond to e.g. a big attack towards Leningrad.
That would mean that it isn't even really viable to try to do any sort of fighting retreat, because if you send your units to fight then you don't have supply
IDK if that is the case or if I was doing anything else wrong, but if that is any significant part of my problem on turn 3, then I really don't see how it is possible to defend Leningrad especially against a Germany player who sends some of the AGC panzers to help push Leningrad at the start and/or who motorizes some of their infantry divisions.

At least Germany lost 361 tanks last turn. Not sure how many they can replace, but that at least sounds like a lot. Hopefully those are not sustainable losses and if that keeps happening then hopefully it will mean the German push starts running out of momentum.



Air losses are also relatively favorable over the last 2 turns (I have not seen much sign of the Luftwaffe):



Anyway in the south, based on the fact that I ended up getting a few units encircled despite a significant retreat behind a continuous river line, I am more persuaded that probably the only thing that is really viable as a strategy is just to run.
And probably for the most part don't even try any sort of orderly retreat and don't try to cover for any straggler divisions that are a bit lower on MP
Just run at full speed in a chaotic/disorderly manner probably
Also I am less sure that it makes any sense to try to defend Fastov, and I am starting to regret building forts in various places (including Kiev/Cherkasy/etc), since probably Germany will get there very soon over the next turn or 2 probably at most, and I am not sure even a single fort level will be completed
I sort of doubt, given the pace of the German advance, that defending Fastov (even if succesful and if it doesn't result in further encirclemnt) would really slow the pace of rail repair
Given that in the north the Dnieper was not much of a barrier at all, maybe for any chance to hold there (even holding just until the infantry catches up) you need to dig in more, which would mean you should not defend anywhere else and just immediately retreat to there starting turn 1
Overall, this game so far is making me think that motorizing infantry is very very strong and might be OP/unbalanced (unless it really does cause significant logistical problems later, which does remain to be seen), and also so far makes me think that the best strategy for Germany at least for the first few turns is just to push as far and as fast as humanly possible (ignoring things like CPP running low, just push straight on).
The biggest problem for Soviets in making a defense is that at any given turn, any German infantry division could suddenly be changed to become motorized and then have a much larger than expected # of MPs.

[carlkay58]

Yes the Soviets have to build depots in 41. They start with depots covering the original front line fairly well but then only a few major cities have depots already in the rear. All ports automatically have depots but the center relies on a single depot in Smolensk. Even the depots that exist at the start of the war in the rear areas have low priorities and these have to be adjusted up. You need the depots to get your supplies to the troops without using trucks from your National Supply Sources (NSS). Your closest NSS is Moscow but even that means LONG truck transports. A better supply net (and it will take a while to build one up) will also give your units better CVs and morale benefits (i.e. no supply penalties) and the Soviets need every helpful thing they can get in 41.

First build depots at every railyard that is two or more then build some in the level 1 railyards - don't bother building a depot where there is not a railyard until you have the construction units called up and on the map - about turn 5 or 6. Anything before that time will just suck up resources without really getting you anywhere. After you have the construction units on the map you can start worrying about depots where there are no existing railyards and also building up some air bases. By this time you will have a better idea where you will be trying to build a defensive line.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: carlkay58

Yes the Soviets have to build depots in 41. They start with depots covering the original front line fairly well but then only a few major cities have depots already in the rear. All ports automatically have depots but the center relies on a single depot in Smolensk. Even the depots that exist at the start of the war in the rear areas have low priorities and these have to be adjusted up. You need the depots to get your supplies to the troops without using trucks from your National Supply Sources (NSS). Your closest NSS is Moscow but even that means LONG truck transports. A better supply net (and it will take a while to build one up) will also give your units better CVs and morale benefits (i.e. no supply penalties) and the Soviets need every helpful thing they can get in 41.

First build depots at every railyard that is two or more then build some in the level 1 railyards - don't bother building a depot where there is not a railyard until you have the construction units called up and on the map - about turn 5 or 6. Anything before that time will just suck up resources without really getting you anywhere. After you have the construction units on the map you can start worrying about depots where there are no existing railyards and also building up some air bases. By this time you will have a better idea where you will be trying to build a defensive line.

Thanks for that. One thing I noticed is that in some of the places I started subsequently building depots, it started constructing railyards. At least in some places, this seemed like a BAD thing for me as the Soviets, because if the depots are built in places that Germany is going to capture, then that simply means that Germany will capture more railyards, and this will then help German supply. I hadn't thought to look at where railyards were for deciding where to build depots, but I guess it makes sense that you need to build one to unload supplies from the trains. I am not sure if there are enough cities with railyards to build depots only on places with railyards, but if not this seems to me like something that disfavors forward defense for the Soviets. If you are going to have to build depots to get supply, and the depot will build a railyard that Germany can then capture and which will then improve German supply, probably better to just run and not build the depot. In those cases where I already built some depots like that, hopefully if I disband the depot before the railyard is finished, then maybe Germany won't capture the in-progress railyard?

[CapAndGown]

I think a big problem the Soviets have with supply is the crappy admin scores of their leaders. Depots are certainly an issue, but as you point out, I don't want to be building things for the Germans. For instance, I thought there was naturally a rail yard at Unecha (Southwest of Bryansk). It turns out the Soviets had created it and I simply took it over. Very nice of the Russians to do that for me! So I would have the factory display on while choosing where to position depots so that you can see where pre-exsisting rail yards are before creating a depot. Unfortunately, that means you are going to have wide expanses not near any depot. For instance, north of the Dnepr between Kiev and Kharkov there are almost no rail yards. Nevertheless, I am not going to build any just so the Germans can capture them. (Same goes for airfields; the only ones I have built have been east of Moscow.)

[Beethoven1]

And now back to your regularly scheduled Great Patriotic Motorization! Yes, there will be more motorization to come! A motor for every Comrade! Or rather, for every Paratrooper and NKVD Border Guard! We don't have that many motors, so we will give them to those guys.




End of Soviet turn 3. In the north, I cut off (temporarily) supply to a lot of the German units pushing Pskov/Leningrad. This was accomplished by moving around the infantry within the not-very-sealed pockets to link up with each other, and in addition by a motorized brigade that had been sitting in Pskov and had high movement points. This is most or all of 2 German Panzer Groups:



Note that although I used a motorized brigade for this, if I didn't happen to have one lying around at exactly the right place, I could have simply motorized any of my units to do the same thing.

Previously I have not found doing this to have that much effect on the actual ability of German Panzers and Motorized divisions to push, but it also means that my pocketed units will survive for at least one more turn and probably at least some will end up getting routed out. Hopefully it might also delay rail repair.

The main downside here is the probable loss of the motorized brigade, in particular the motorized brigade has almost 1000 trucks in it. I am not sure how the truck capturing mechanics work, but if it means that Germany would capture 1000 trucks, then you could argue that this might not even be worth it potentially, since over the longer term that would presumably help German logistics.

I also re-established significant defense in depth, as well as starting to put more than one division on some hexes (in particular the ones covering the flank of Pskov in heavy forest and/or rough terrain).

I expected this to make it hard-to-impossible to capture pskov in one turn at least. The more realistic immediate threat here is probably a renewed push up towards Lake Ilmen/Novgorod, and then threatening the flank of Pskov from the side.

Also further to the north I am starting to fill in some units on the Novgorod/Luga defense line. This is mostly units that are refitting, and once they are ready will get cycled back into the meatgrinder, while other units further forward which become unready/depleted will get cycled back into the front for as long as we can delay in front of the Luga/Novgorod area.

I also set more reserves to be deployed in the north at the end of the turn. One thing also to start being concerned about is if Germany tries to go around the south of Lake Ilmen (Starya Russa) and potentially cut off the rail line between Moscow and Leningrad, so one of the reserve divisions will be deployed there to have at least something guarding there. Gradually more troops will be added there.

In the center I decided to fall back to defend in Vitebsk/Smolensk and the road to Bryansk/Gomel in good terrain. I could easily have taken a more aggressive approach and tried to counterattack and get in between some of the German regiments, but I decided at this stage it wasn't really worth the risk. So I just put in 2 sacrificial small units (1 para and AT brigade) to slow things down.



Part of my reason for doing this was I thought it was possible that in the next turn Germany might overextend further and provide a better opportunity to do something more aggressive. But on the other hand, if Germany didn't and pretty much just sat there, that would give me some time to entrench and strengthen my defenses a bit more, which would not be a bad thing. Given the high losses the previous turn, I also was concerned about just how many losses I could really afford from putting a bunch of units out in clear terrain and waiting for them to get routed.

The other really big thing, however, was that in addition to cutting off German units in the north, I also cut off this snake/spearhead. This time the culprit was an Airborne Brigade that I motorized for a cost of 1 AP and a grand total of 65 trucks (yes, only 65 trucks needed to cut off an entire Panzer Group):



I was going to try to make the pocket a bit wider at the cost of sacrificing another unit or two, not with any expectatation that it would hold, but because that would mean German infantry could not move into the area taken by the tanks and across the Dnieper in one turn, so it would have maybe slowed the German advance further by up to a turn or so by delaying the infantry.

However there was a German infantry division there (the one with the question mark) 3 hexes to the south of Krupki which was not originally visible and didn't show up on my recon.

In the swamps I cut off one cavalry division temporarily. German infantry also were approaching towards Gomel. The question was where will they start going - will they try to cross directly at Gomel? Or go south through the swamps (where I don't really have units currently to stop them, and the only thing stopping them is really the extra time and supply difficulties), or do they simply just go north and cross near Orsha, where Germany already crossed, and then start pushing south?



Meanwhile in the South, I reluctantly pulled all the way back to the Dnieper. The main reason for that was the losses I took the previous turn, and also the fact that Germany had crossed the Dnieper so easily in the north when I tried to defend in front of the Dnieper and delay there in the north. That had clearly not worked.there, so I was hoping that falling back more quickly this time and having some time to entrench and to re-equip unready units might work better.



The other thing here is that the small-ish pocket in the south was also broken. The unit that broke the pocket was a brave NKVD border guards unit, with 433 brave men who boarded 51 trucks for another temporary motorization cost of 1 AP (in addition to the truck cost).

I doubt I would have done this if I had to motorize and sacrifice an actual infantry division to do it, but for an understrength NKVD border guards unit that only needed 51 trucks to get the job done, it was definitely worth it.
Overall, this turn clearly shows that motorizing units is very powerful for breaking pockets, and tbh potentially it might be OP.

In particular if all you need is just enough MP to move one unit in to temporarily break a pocket, then it seems particularly cost-effective to use in combination with cheap/low manpower units, especially if they are understrength. That makes units like NKVD border guards and paratroopers the best for this.

Actually if you have full strength AT brigades you could potentially use those for the same purpose, since those can get up to 35 or so MP.

I would have liked to defend in the south in Fastov at the least a bit (this was my earlier intent/plan), but I was afraid that if I did, the same thing would happen that happened in the Smolensk-area part of the Dnieper, namely Germany could just end up crossing easily against units that were not dug in and prepared behind the river.

So now a big question is how well can the Dnieper hold, and for how long...
In the far south, I started pulling troops back to Odessa. Basically nothing in the southern front has fought in any sort of combat so far:



My plan here is (I guess) to stick 7 divisions into the fortress, and pull all the other units back behind the Dnieper:

But it seems like a pretty big problem that all of the infantry here are somewhat under-strength (they have about 8000 men each).

So I am really not sure how well those will hold, as in effect it is less than 7 divisions if you take into account how understrength they are. I did put those divisions on refit this turn, but hadn't done so on any previous turns (maybe I should have). Even if they were fully strength divisions, I am still not entirely sure how worth it it would be to leave a bunch of divisions

But (I guess?) I am going to try it at least in this case. Part of the reason is to simply see first how how it works and to try it at least once.
Although I am really not sure it will work basically at all. I still have at least one more turn though where I could potentially pull either most or everything out.

Also potentially I could pull some units out in a future turn once Odessa is surrounded, depending on the naval interdiction situation and on whether it holds at least initially for any time whatsoever.

Another thing I forgot to mention is that I did a lot of ground attack bombing against the German Panzer divisions that had been cut off, both in the north and around Smolensk.

This didn't have much visible effect, and I lost about 300 bombers doing this (mostly to operational losses, but also quite a few to flak). But at least it had more visible effect than interdiction, since interdiction appears to do essentially nothing of any value. At least regular bombing does actually destroy some equipment/troops, and I think it may also lower CPP or increase fatigue or something like that (not sure of the details though).



That's all until next turn, when we will continue the Greatly Patriotic Motorization. Which unit(s) will be motorized next turn, anyone want to guess?

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: CapAndGown

I think a big problem the Soviets have with supply is the crappy admin scores of their leaders. Depots are certainly an issue, but as you point out, I don't want to be building things for the Germans. For instance, I thought there was naturally a rail yard at Unecha (Southwest of Bryansk). It turns out the Soviets had created it and I simply took it over. Very nice of the Russians to do that for me! So I would have the factory display on while choosing where to position depots so that you can see where pre-exsisting rail yards are before creating a depot. Unfortunately, that means you are going to have wide expanses not near any depot. For instance, north of the Dnepr between Kiev and Kharkov there are almost no rail yards. Nevertheless, I am not going to build any just so the Germans can capture them. (Same goes for airfields; the only ones I have built have been east of Moscow.)

And sure enough, I built a depot somewhere between Kiev and Kharkov, and we are constructing a railyard for Germany there now Yeah, I am going to make sure to only build depots where there is already a railyard for a while now, thanks!

[M60A3TTS]

ORIGINAL: Beethoven1
north hex against my glorious 17th Tank Division, which had 456 tanks but nevertheless routed



That battle had almost 4 to 1 odds despite how good that tank division supposedly was, the pride of the Red Army lol
not sure, but maybe he crossed the river first and then attacked that from the side (didn't think there would be enough MP for that, if that is what happened)

P. Filatov has no business having a tank division in his army. He's mech rating 2.

[Beethoven1]

ORIGINAL: M60A3TTS

P. Filatov has no business having a tank division in his army. He's mech rating 2.

Yeah, I hadn't changed any generals yet (all AP that were not used on motorization were used on forts, which was probably a mistake), and for the generals all I looked at was the overall rating, not the specifics. There is one general in the western front that starts off with a 2.5 rating, at least I avoided him

Of the starting generals, are there any that are significantly better? e.g. giving a tank division to someone with a 3 mech rating rather than a 2 rating probably would not make too much difference. For a larger difference you probably need to spend AP on a better general like Rokossovsky or someone.

Up to this point in the game, I had spent 5 AP on temporary motorization (1 on NKVD on turn 1, 2 on infantry division turn 1, 1 on paratrooper turn 3, and 1 on the NKVD turn 3). I also accidentally built a fort in the wrong hex near Leningrad and wasted 2 AP on that misclick. That would be close to enough for 1 general, albeit only on one single part of the front (and I probably would have put them in Leningrad anyway).